Supernatural: Bad Day at Black Rock
June 29, 2021 4:34 AM - Season 3, Episode 3 - Subscribe

The Winchesters are notified that their father's storage unit has been robbed, track down the robbers, and find the stolen item is a cursed rabbit's foot, which provides astoundingly great luck for its owner, and fatal misfortune once the owner loses it. Meanwhile, Gordon, who is in prison, convinces another hunter that Sam is pure evil and must be eliminated.

Quotes:

Dean: So you're only out for yourself, huh? Looking out for number one?
Bela: Being a hunter is so much more noble? A bunch of obsessed revenge-driven sociopaths trying to save a world that can't be saved?
Dean: Well. Aren't you a glass half-full.
Bela: We're all going to hell, Dean. Might as well enjoy the ride. 
Dean: I actually agree with you there. Anyhoo, this has been charming, but, uh, look at the time. 

Bela: [after being forced to burn the rabbit foot] Thanks very much. I'm out 1.5 million and on the bad side of a very powerful, fairly psychotic buyer. 
Dean: Wow. I really don't feel bad about that. Sam?
Sam: Nope. Not even a little.
posted by orange swan (8 comments total)
 
It was nice for Sam and Dean to find the things their father had kept out of sentimental attachment: Sam's soccer trophy and Dean's first sawed-off shotgun. Sam mentions in an earlier episode that his father and he conflicted over him wanting to play soccer instead of learning bow hunting, but it seems like John gave in (and would have had to pay the fees and for Sam's uniform), and was proud of him for winning. But yeah, one more thing he never told them, with so much more to come. Did John ever really talk to his sons?

I enjoy Bela's character. Sure, she's a terrible person, but she is awful with such style, insouciance, and aplomb.

It seemed more than a little contrived to me that Dean wouldn't notice that Bela had her hands on his jacket, in the pocket of which his winning lotto tickets resided, and tell her not to touch it. He knows she's light-fingered.

Kubrick is even crazier than Gordon. Yikes.
posted by orange swan at 4:45 AM on June 29, 2021


Totally agree with you about Bella. It's nice to get some female energy in this show. I like the fact that she's just as good (or better) than the boys and can give them a run for their money, and keep them on their toes. They need that.

Of course, there's the stereotype of women can't be trusted and they're all sly and sneaky (unless they're pure and completely "good" girls--like the kind you get engaged to) but I'm ignoring that for now. I mean the regularly re-occurring women that I've encountered so far have been some demons, (Meg, Ruby, Crossroads Demon) plus Ellen and Jo (and Jess and Mary if we want to include dead loved ones).
posted by sardonyx at 6:47 AM on June 29, 2021


Are there any real restaurants that actually make tinfoil swans for takeout/ leftovers (scene where the hunters are following up on the 1,000,000th customer trail, outside of the restaurant)?
posted by porpoise at 5:57 PM on June 29, 2021


Are there any real restaurants that actually make tinfoil swans for takeout/ leftovers

For some reason that's a thing I associate with New York City of like thirty or forty years ago? I think once in my life I ordered delivery of peking duck from a random restaurant and it showed up in a tinfoil duck (maybe it was a tinfoil swan, I'm not a tinfoil ornithologist) though that was not in NY and not thirty years ago, so what do I know. And it was delightful, but one of those things that's, yeah, probably more a cultural thing on TV more than it exists in real life, certainly these days.

Bela's accent is A Lot but she's fun, and the idea that the supernatural ecosystem would have a niche for people who want to steal/sell/buy its material objects makes a ton of sense. There's got to be non-fatal stuff Sam and Dean could dig up and sell with a reasonably clear conscience.

At the very end of the graveyard scene, JP is very visibly trying to conceal from the camera that he's cracking up with at best partial success, which is also pretty funny.
posted by jameaterblues at 6:28 PM on June 29, 2021 [1 favorite]


Fans apparently hated Bela and I never understood that; she's a great counterpoint to the hunters.
posted by Pope Guilty at 11:53 PM on June 29, 2021


Perhaps she was a little too trope-y? A modified manic pixie dreamgirl who's an annoyance rather than a straight-out threat?

Personally, she felt too much like Yves in the first half of (the terrible) 'The Lone Gunmen' (2001).

But Lauren Cohan played the part well. Peeking at IMDB, I'm glad she's a recurring. Had no idea that 'The Walking Dead' was still on, and that her major character is still in it.
posted by porpoise at 12:47 AM on June 30, 2021


Padalecki played Sam's post-rabbit foot haplessness pretty well (I got such a fit of giggles over the AC lighting on fire), and Dean's "I know I can't blame you but good grief" exasperation with him was so funny.
posted by orange swan at 2:23 PM on June 30, 2021


Doing a rewatch later and catching these threads. I was a little frustrated/confused by Kubrick's insistence that Gordon should be trusted because he'd saved his ass several times. Ellen told the boys last season Gordon could never be trusted as a hunting partner because he'd always be willing to throw anyone, even another hunter, under the bus to make his kill (maybe not that explicitly, but it seemed clear enough to me anyway), and since Ellen wasn't hunting herself that had to have been his reputation among folks who would know, not just a bad personal experience.
posted by solotoro at 10:50 AM on October 25, 2021


« Older Last Week Tonight with John Ol...   |  Katla: Season 1, Full Season... Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments

poster